[Critique Game] Post the First Three Sentences of your Novel (moved to The Sandbox)

It's an opinion, gutter. You've got yours, I've got mine.

More important than either of ours is the author's.

onesecondglance said:

More important than either of ours is the author's.

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Couldn't agree more.

Oh my gosh. I'm at work, on my lunchbreak, but wanted to drop in for few minutes. Thanks a bunch for the suggestions! (LOVE this forum!) And, Guttersquid, is it? Nifty rewritten suggestion. Funny. I actually scribbled a few different versions of those lines, and yours was one of my earlier versions of it. But when I get to revising so much, my eyes go crazy and nothing looks right. Then I just leave it as is and move on.

Maxim, is just Maxim. No nicknames anywhere in the story. And, contrary to the origins that one may expect (i.e. Russian, etc) he's supposed to be from Boston and grew up in the Bronx, lol. So the "Eh" and the over-excited exclaimation mark, is mostly just a result of how his personality/character is. Well, how I envision him in my head, anyway.

VRanger said:

a - I agree ... "Hey" sounds like a better fit.
b - Also agree - that guy sounds like people are going to call him Max or Maxy. But Maxy has drawbacks. When he has a party who's going to be all excited about going over to Maxy's Pad?

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Thanks for the feedback! Originally, it was "Hey" but after I began writing and my characters came alive for me, "Eh" just fit better. Obviously, that's not something you could tell from just the first 3 (or 4, technically, lol - sorry!) sentences, but, really "Hey" is definitely not Maxim.

Rats! Only 10 mins left on my lunch break. Just enough time to edit at least another page of my book. Gotta go, but see y'all again later tonight. Happy pre-Friday peoples! Bye

WriteMinded said:

I thought you expressed the MC's distaste for the place and the people in it very well. Isn't this written from the MC's POV? I like this just like it is and would read on.

OH, I see guttersquid's comment. OK. I agree with guttersquid 100% on each point.

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thank you for your liking it!

Miss Strawberrii said:

From me:

As much as Clover Falone loved her mother, she despised working at The Potion and Flagon when forced to. A serving girl quit the previous night, claiming that the overwhelming stench of chemicals made her too sick to work in the tavern. This sudden situation made Miss Farlone understaffed, and desperate to find a new worker.

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Love the first and second sentence! The third though to me is stating the obvious, so I would change it to something more interesting

Miss Strawberrii said:

From me:

As much as Clover Falone loved her mother,she despised working at The Potion and Flagon when forced to. A serving girl quit the previous night, claiming that the overwhelming stench of chemicals made her too sick to work in the tavern. This sudden situation made Miss Farlone understaffed, and desperate to find a new worker. Clover Falone had to fill in.

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I find what's going on intriguing. That said, one serving girl quitting to desperation for a new worker seems a bit overly dramatic.

Nice, just a couple words I'd eliminate.

Miss Strawberrii said:

As much as Clover Falone loved her mother, she despised working at The Potion and Flagon when forced to. A serving girl quit the previous night, claiming that the overwhelming stench of chemicals made her too sick to work in the tavern. This sudden situation made Miss Farlone understaffed, and desperate to find a new worker.

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Miss Strawberrii said:

As much as Clover Falone loved her mother, she despised working at The Potion and Flagon when forced to. A serving girl quit the previous night, claiming that the overwhelming stench of chemicals made her too sick to work in the tavern. This sudden situation made Miss Farlone understaffed, and desperate to find a new worker.

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This is a bit telly & backstoryish for my tastes. It's not grabbing me but not pushing me away either, so I'd read on.

Thanks for posting Miss Strawberrii!

Miss Strawberrii said:

From me:

As much as Clover Falone loved her mother, she despised working at The Potion and Flagon when forced to. Does she only despise working there when she is forced into it, or does she hate it all the time? A serving girl quit the previous night, claiming that the overwhelming stench of chemicals made her too sick to work in the tavern. This sudden situation made Miss Farlone understaffed, and desperate to find a new worker.

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Most of this you don't need. In the first sentence you tell us that she hates the place, which I assume is owned by her mother. In the second sentence you can let us know why she is there tonight with a minimum of words. Something like, she was only here tonight because dadadee, dadadee. If the chemical stench is important to the story this is a good place for it, but if it isn't, we don't need to know why the serving wench quit. The third sentence is redundant.

Here's the first three from a mystery/thriller wip of mine:

"The police are not releasing any further information at this time. They're asking for anyone who has any information on Thomas Blake to call this number." My cell phone began to ring, filling the room with the soft sound of U2.

Who is speaking? After the person stops speaking, the phone rings? I'm confused.

This is why giving only the three lines is hard. It's on the tv, and in the next sentence the narration tells you that, but the limit is three sentences...

You might do something to show it was off the TV earlier than sentence four, maybe start the first sentence by indicating the voice is coming from the television. As a reader, I don't want to be confused after three sentences, so I would like to know who is speaking the dialogue before you talk about the cell phone ringing. That could just be me, though.

Thank you for the suggestion, it's definitely a good idea

lrose20 said:

Here's the first three from a mystery/thriller wip of mine:

"The police are not releasing any further information at this time. They're asking for anyone who has any information on Thomas Blake to call this number." My cell phone began to ring, filling the room with the soft sound of U2.

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I'm not a huge fan of openings in dialogue form. It doesn't feel very mature. I'm also a bit disoriented because the cell phone rings after the announcement has been made, so where is the narrator hearing it from? Where is he/she? (This is all information that will presumably follow). I can't say I'm hooked, though, sorry!

Okay, here's my current opening to my WIP. Any and all feedback, however harsh, is appreciated!

The stranger arrived after nightfall, sealing my fate the moment his boots touched the gravel path. I lay awake all night and sprung out of bed the next morning, determined to call upon the abbess in her study before any of the other sisters had the opportunity. It was bold of me to seek out an audience with her, but I felt I had no choice.

lrose20 said:

Here's the first three from a mystery/thriller wip of mine:

"The police are not releasing any further information at this time. They're asking for anyone who has any information on Thomas Blake to call this number." My cell phone began to ring, filling the room with the soft sound of U2.

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Kudos for the U2 song! Which one is it?

Railroad's suggestion is excellent. More grounding as to who is speaking would do wonders for this.

I'd also change "began to ring" to "rang" or to "immediately rang"

BTW, how many WIPs do you have going? Just curious.

Thanks for posting lrose20.

PandaMan said:

Kudos for the U2 song! Which one is it?

Railroad's suggestion is excellent. More grounding as to who is speaking would do wonders for this.

I'd also change "began to ring" to "rang" or to "immediately rang"

BTW, how many WIPs do you have going? Just curious.

Thanks for posting lrose20.

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Thank you for the suggestions. As for the wips, God, I always have several. They're not all ones I'm actively working on though. My problem is I'm fairly decent at thinking of beginnings for stories, but terrible at completing them

lrose20 said:

Here's the first three from a mystery/thriller wip of mine:

"The police are not releasing any further information at this time. They're asking for anyone who has any information on Thomas Blake to call this number." My cell phone began to ring, filling the room with the soft sound of U2.

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My confusion here is that, although I recognized that it was some kind of announcement, the close proximity of the recommendation to call a certain number followed by the phone ringing led me to the wrong conclusion that someone had called the number posted on TV, and that's why the MC's phone is ringing. So, as you clarify in further sentences, I would have had to revise my initial conclusion. What others have mentioned about clarifying would be helpful.

casualrungal said:

The stranger arrived after nightfall, sealing my fate the moment his boots touched the gravel path. I lay awake all night and sprung out of bed the next morning, determined to call upon the abbess in her study before any of the other sisters had the opportunity. It was bold of me to seek out an audience with her, but I felt I had no choice.

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I think you should delete the "sealing my fate" in the first sentence. It's like hitting the reader over the head with obvious foreshadowing. It doesn't really say anything other than (something is going to happen). I'd suggest some type of emotion the MC feels regarding the stranger arriving.

Otherwise, this is pretty good and I'd read on.


Thanks for posting casualrungal.

Smeasking said:

All was deathly still. And quiet. Thus, the Silent Forest was quite appropriately named, Eliza thought.

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Well, all three of your sentences sound redundant to me Smeasking. Nothing really grabs me here. Now, if you had some bamboo in the Silent Forest, that would be a totally different thing!

How about if you have Eliza do something in this forest instead of just thinking about how quiet and still it is? That might be much more interesting.

Thanks for posting.